Design Garden Foundation Class

Join The Class

Does artistic design fascinate you?

You would like to learn how to make hand drawn graphics and sell these as clip art, use in web and branding design? I will share my experience and techniques which transformed Design Garden and The Ink Nest into successful business.

in addition, many tips on good design with insights into my design process

You will have a ready set of graphics designed by the end of the workshop, which you can start selling right away.

Students report that they used vector graphics in client projects already by the 3rd week of the class. Many have never worked with Illustrator before.

Outcomes

This is a professional class intended to return your investment. It is not a hobby class even though the process is fun and creative. Many of my students have found more clients and opened new income channels because of what they have learned in this class. You can apply this technique and knowledge in many areas of your work:

create hand drawn illustrations for your blog and make your blog posts stand out. Great for professional bloggers.

redesign your website and business cards with hand drawn images. Attract new clients with your creativity.

illustrate invitations and greeting cards both for business and your personal use

create art prints, t-shirt illustrations, illustrate iPhone cases

sell clip art

Designers

You are well familiar with the digital world and probably you moved all your workflow to the computer – using a tablet to draw. This class will return the joy of drawing on paper from your childhood, will enhance the creativity of your projects and will bring a new technique to your arsenal. Moreover, learning how to create clip art will help you open one more income channel. Selling graphics is one source of passive income for freelance designers that should not be ignored.

Illustrators

You are well familiar with the analogue tools but you feel a bit nervous creating digital artwork? This class will teach you how to transfer your hand drawn process to the computer and create scalable vector graphics which are easy to edit. Moreover, one difficulty many illustrators have with creating design graphics is that artists tend to keep the graphics complex (similarly to fine art drawings). In design simplifying is important. I will help you find new ways to clean your work and make conceptual design oriented graphics.

Beginners

You know how to draw a bit, and you are interested in design but you don’t know where to start? Illustrator is a mystery and your work in Photoshop is very basic. You yearn to create sophisticated graphics like you have seen online but you find it difficult. This class is the equivalent of gently taking your hand and step by step teaching you a workflow that you will feel comfortable to follow. Once you learn these basics you will gradually feel more confident.

Digital Camera (could be a simple point and shoot or your phone camera)

Scanner (basic scanner)

Illustrator software CS3 and up

Basic drawing skills

beginner Adobe Illustrator skills (suitable for absolute beginners) We are NOT going to use a Wacom tablet. A list with drawing materials will be sent to you once you sign for the class.

An online class is a form of web-based training. It all happens online. Each lessons consists of videos, text, reference links and downloads. You find all these materials on the website when you register for the class.

This is not a technical class only. The technical part – illustrator processing is only a portion of it. I am teaching the whole process of creating good graphics, from the research phase, simplifying drawings for design purposes, drawing confidently, processing in Illustrator, to packaging and selling, tips on marketing and much more! Knowing the technique alone will not guarantee that you will create successful graphics. Knowing the whole process will give you the tools to succeed with creating sellable graphics.

This is primarily a design class. In our work we will not need fine art pencil drawing and advanced techniques like shading or dimension. If you can capture the basic form of objects, this class will be very helpful. And many of my students start by saying they can not draw well and end up with gorgeous drawings. Much of it is fear and self doubt.

Yes! We have many success stories in this class of students who never worked with Illustrator before the class and were able to create vector drawings by the end of it. We will be using some very basic, key techniques to process the graphics. There will be step by step tutorial how to process your images. Before the class you can watch some helpful videos which introduce the most important Illustrator tools. I will be sending some resources and a list of materials some weeks before the course start.

In this class I will not teach the following: – how to create fine art pencil drawings, how to paint – branding and logo design is not covered – website and blog design – Illustrator techniques which are not related to hand drawn graphics

This is going to be practically one on one teaching even though it is happening online. The time that I will spend with you will guarantee that you stay on track and learn as much as possible in this course. Also very few other courses will give you all the tools and information how to design good graphics. Many online classes for $20 will only give a taste of the topic, show some processing tips. This class shows my complete process of design in detail. I share things I have learned in the last years working with hundreds of clients, having a design business, selling graphics. The feedback on each of your assignments plus the live Q&A sessions are feature that not many other online classes offer. Some of the ways this class will return investment (many times over) by: – save you money on purchasing graphics. Once you learn how to make the graphics yourself you will not have to spend so much on purchasing graphics for your projects. – create and sell clip art can open a new income channel for you (so important for freelancers!) – being able to offer some unique drawings will give you ground to price your services higher.

If you are not happy with the course presentation, materials and outcome, I will refund you. One condition for a full refund is that you submit all assignments.

Many online courses are impersonal and overwhelm students with pre-recorded content. There is lack of follow up and students often abandon the course without completing it. Unlike these courses, this class is organized in series of lectures delivered in manageable units.

One on one feedback on all of your assignments. I offer critique and helpful advise how to improve your graphics with each assignment and discuss your progress. This much personal attention is offered in very few classes online.

Live Q&A sessions I will be explaining live, as well as taking your questions in real time.

Weekly email prompts and inspiration will keep you involved in the course. You will benefit from direct attention of the tutor and learn quickly without getting lost in information.

Julia Glukhoy

Chemeyne Nieman

Jennifer Orkin Lewis

Erica Hite

Dewi Citra

I have to say that I had no previous experience with illustrator, I was also afraid of it. Not only was I able to overcome my fear but, I am able to do everything that I have learned in this class without even looking at my notes. Not only do I feel comfortable with basics, I can apply some textures, figure out what to do when I run into problems. I couldn’t have even imagine that I would have learned so much in such short time. I know Sabina said that your first set will be your worst set and others will get better but, I have seen so many amazing first sets in this class, even from people who didn’t use illustrator before.

– Julia Glukhoy

I can not sing enough praise, this will be one of the best investments I’ve ever made! Motivation, inspiration and great technique are the backbone of the course with well planned assignments and information at every turn. Sabina’s class has tapped into an aspect of design I haven’t been able to successfully include in my work. Drawing has long been a practice I used with no way to get “the look” I was hoping for in my end result on the computer. The detail and thought process used in Sabina’s class was an enormous help and cleared up so many of my shortcomings when it came to the finished product in Illustrator. I will forever be thankful for the chance to take and improve my skills.

– Angie Sandy

Sabina’s class was an amazing experience. She provided thoughtful lessons each week with many examples and thorough explanation of the content. Her beautiful illustrations were the backdrop for many of the lesson plans and Sabina explained very well the process behind her design success. She gave extremely helpful feedback on each assignment as well. I have used Adobe Illustrator for many years and this class has opened my eyes to new possibilities in creating my own illustrations. I am very inspired and consider myself lucky to have been a student of such a talented individual.

– Gina Linehan

Register now and start learning right away!

About the tutor

Sabina Radeva

Graphic designer, web designer, illustrator

Bio

Sabina is the founder of The Ink Nest, a popular website for graphics where she offers artistic stock graphics together with several amazing artists. She is also freelance graphic designer and web designer. Her website www.designgarden.co